Resilience of adolescents living with political violence in Kashmir: role of religious meaning system and political ideology

Abstract

This was a study of resilience in adolescents living with political violence in Kashmir and the aim was to understand the role of religious meaning systems and political ideologies in fostering resilience. The study developed an understanding of resilience from the perspective of youth in Kashmir, in order to measure culturally salient aspects. The study was conceptualized through an ecological framework in order to understand resilience as a dynamic process that is a result of interactions between the child s context, psychological mediating units and responses to adversity. The context was defined by risks present in Kashmir, that included the violence proneness of the area of residence, socio-economic condition of the adolescent s family, actual exposure to political violence and adolescents age and gender. The psychological mediating units were religious and general meaning newlinesystems and separatist and moderate ideologies. The role of meaning systems and political ideologies were tested by using the person-based as well as variable based approaches. There were 375 school going boys and girls in the age range of 14 to 17 years (Mean age 15.31 years) from Bandipore and Uri in Baramulla district of Kashmir. Bandipore was a high violence area, while Uri was a low violence area and all the respondents were Muslims. The study was based on a constructivist realism ontology that accepts that reality is both subjective and objective and aims to find correlates of people s constructions in the lived world of a representative sample of the people who constructed those realities. A cross sectional survey method was used and data were collected by means of self-report questionnaires. The questionnaires used to collect data were: Exposure to Political violence in Kashmir, Religious beliefs, Political beliefs, Child and youth resilience measure and Self reporting questionnaire 20 (SRQ20). Data were collected by contacting the adolescents in their schools.